Letters: Did we overpromise?

Population growth the real culprit

Your editorial described the spike in artificial turf sports fields as being the consequence of our over promising the durability of natural grass fields.

I see a bigger factor as being population growth. Did we over promise? Or are our communities over supplying sports fields users?

An even bigger force pushing artificial fields, which can withstand the play of several grass fields, is the huge spike in real estate costs. A three to ten fold increase in land costs deter communities from purchasing land for additional grass fields.

Carpets can also take some of the pressure off of natural grass, enabling athletic field managers to keep some fields in excellent shape.

Also, when game day lands on a saturated day, it is nice to have a place where the game can go on and not destroy a good stand of athletic turf.

— Will Hairston, supervisor of grounds, Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA

Eight years of peace and quiet

I don't think Ron has a very good understanding of the problem of grass fields.

We manage public playing fields in the San Franciso Bay Area. Any urban field anywhere is booked solid. Our lighted fields get about 700 practices and games a year- and we have a ten week winter and summer shutdown (and this is a luxury not available to most).

No cultivar, no maintenance practices, no peer to peer educational effort is going to make a whit of difference. However, in general, public field maintenance is atrocious. Sprinkler breaks go unrepaired, holes go unfilled, etc. People doing maintenance in the public sector, for the most part, don't care. And they aren't paid to care.

What plastic grass offers is a field that can be used 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at virtually no maintenance cost. Now the fact that the whole thing will fall apart in eight years and at a cost most likely exceeding the cost of decent maintenance is some future politicians problem.

But for the Parks Director plastic grass means eight years of peace and quiet from complaining telephone calls and rainouts. No wonder everyone is falling all over themselves to put the stuff in.

— Douglas Fielding, chairperson, Association of Sports Field Users, Berkeley, CA

The real culprit: lighting and irrigation

The reality for a athletic field manager like myself is simple: Lights and irrigation on athletic fields have more to do with turf quality than variety or species of turf.

I can see from simple observation of very busy park fields, that irrigated, lighted fields have no grass and unlighted and nonirrigated fields have turf.

The misconception is that fields with irrigation can sustain more play, so lets put up lights and play from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm. Then we will water a little and — poof — turf. ... I think not.

Grass does not grow on a busy street! If you had 20 soccer games on the weekend, then had practices every night on your front yard, how long do you think grass would survive?

I forgot to mention the walk ons during the day playing frisbee, or kicking shots from one spot for an hour at a time.

Growing bermuda grass in Indiana is not the answer... there are no superturfs. Unfortunately, the only superturf are better man-made surfaces.

Try limiting play or adding more fields and economics and public outcry become the foe. We agronomists can grow grass anywhere. Scotts used to grow it on concrete just to prove the point. But the real truth is you cannot grow it faster than feet can rip it out!

— Gregg Rosenthal, Area 4 athletic field manager, Fairfax County Parks, Fairfax Station, VA

The right cultivar for the job

It was with great interest that I read your opinion on athletic field wear.

Just a few years ago we installed new sand-based athletic fields with popup irrigation. We're a two-year community college in northern Illinois with a modest athletic field budget and equally modest use of many of the fields.

When we were in the planning stages, it was my suggestion to use a bluegrass/turf-type tall fescue blend on native clay soils. It's cheap, durable, drought-resistant, and almost disease or insect free. Once well established, tall fescue is almost indestructible.

Needless to say, my suggestion was flushed and the outside contractor who installed the fields used a premium bluegrass mix with a cheap perennial rye as a cover crop. As you've probably seen from research by John Street and his associates at the Ohio State University, the rye is extremely aggressive in the early establishment period and chokes out most of the bluegrass. Add super-susceptiblity to rust, two years of drought and early traffic and you can imagine the results.

I would never use a sand-based field again and I still like the tall fescue. Areas that I seeded at the same time with the fescue are doing very well and have excellent color with virtually no maintenance.

As we see more regulation of water, we will have to change some of our cultural practices. Using plants that grow with the least amount of outside interference is certainly a good place to start.

Places that have unlimited manpower and maintenance budgets can do whatever they want, but those systems may not be for everyone and we should realize that.

— Mac Cheever, grounds/landscape supervisor, Rock Valley College, Rockford, IL

Comparing apples to apples

What I am seeing is that organizations were not willing to pay for a good natural field in the first place and were then disappointed by their sorry, slow draining natural soil fields that cost them as little as $75,000 to $125,000. They probably had a pitiful maintenance budget as well.

Now the magical synthetic surface comes in and can save the day.

These organizations that couldn't see to build a nice, well-drained, sand-based field in the first place are willing pay $650,000 to $1,000,000 for a synthetic field.

This is neither the turf nor the turf managers' fault.

I believe that a lot these poor natural field situations that are being replace by synthetic would fit the above scenario. Owners are not making an apples to apples comparison.

— Jon DeWitt, director of grounds maintenance, Wesleyan School, Norcross, GA

Multipurpose fields are being built to fail

I have been teaching seminars on sports field maintenance, doing consulting work on the fields and designing new fields from a maintenance point of view for more than 14 years.

There is direct correlation between wear and maintenance.

Wear has increased exponentially over the past 12 years, mostly because of soccer. During the same period many cities and schools have had budget cuts, even while they were growing acreage by 30% to 40%.

These fields were never designed to tolerate the wear they are getting today.

The common specification used today to build 90% of the fields is more than 50 years old. It's my observation that this specification will guarantee failure of a multipurpose field in 18 months or less!

Larry Musser, principal, PRZ International Sports Turf Consulting, Colorado Springs, CO